Link Domain Data, Filters and Services for River Rapids District Library

Data Legend

Libraries maintain some of the richest descriptive metadata, curated content, and services in the world.
For the Web to connect with libraries, we must share in a way the Web understands.
The following icons are used to represent the types of data Libraries publish to the Web.

Data Enrichment

Libraries share not only their catalogs but additional enrichment data that makes their catalogs even better. The following reflect the visual cues used to represent this information.

Item Types

Item types are aggregate types based on specific combinations of Work (Content) and Instance (Carrier). Item types include

Audio Book

Sound Recording

Movie

Electronic Resource / Electronic Book

Periodical

Series

Music

Print Book

Data Filters

The Web was not the first proposed system for widespread dissemination on a network, but it succeeded where many other initiatives failed. The Web won out because of its very simple protocol (HTTP), simple addressing mechanism (URL) and very simple (and permissive) content format (HTML). Libraries are now through the Library.Link Network funneling more such content to the Web than any other single event. This content also happens to be enriched with data, but that fact should not detract from the basic character of the Web.

The Library.Link network offers this enriched data as a service, but in order to handle the unprecedented scale of what we're doing, we rely on the most basic principles of Web architecture, which are the reasons for its success. We organize the interface to this content and rich data into a handful of resource types, based on prevailing access patterns within libraries, with a handful of filters within each type. We have undertaken this design with a lot of consideration for how the work of building applications on library resources can be best balanced across publishing, syndication and subscription. Incidentally, we hope more projects recognize that this is the right-sized and best proven approach to Web "APIs".

Types

Type filters follow the simple pattern of

http://riverrapids.library.link/resource/type/filter

The following are the set Type filters currently available

/all

Example

http://riverrapids.library.link/portal/all

Result

Returns the list of URI, label pairs for all of the resources of a particular type

Resources

Each resource on a Libraries Link Domain has a Local Link Identifier that you obtain by appending its ID (such as B4gN9Duqv3s) to the Library's Link domain namespace
http://riverrapids.library.link/resource/

For example, the Local Link Identifier for Rowling, J. K. is http://riverrapids.library.link/resource/B4gN9Duqv3s/. Note that this identifier refers to the real-world person. However, it is possible to use this Identifer to access data about Rowling, J. K. by simply using it as a URL.

Items

Items are a special type of Resource. An item in a Libraries Link Domain has a Local Link Identifier that you obtain by appending its ID (such as D5Pq8-7u4w8) to the
Library's Link domain namespace
http://riverrapids.library.link/portal/-/

Identifier Services

Each resource on a Libraries Link Domain has a Local Link Identifier. Some of these resources are known by additional community or vendor supplied identifiers such
as an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) or a control number assigned by a Library vendor.
Identifier Resolver and Mapping services are provided to make it easier to access these Local Link resources by these additional identifiers.

Resolvers

Identifier Resolvers are provided by the Libraries Link Domain to more easily access Library.Link resources directly and
accelerate the data consumption by 3rd party applications.

Identifier Resolvers follow the simple pattern of

http://riverrapids.library.link/id/scheme/identifier/resource

The following are the set Identifier Resolvers currently available.

/id/isbn/

Example

http://riverrapids.library.link/id/isbn/9780312938994/resource

Result

Returns a redirect to the resource that is additionally known by the ISBN number

9780312938994

.

/id/recordNumber/

Example

http://riverrapids.library.link/id/recordNumber/.b12998539/resource

Result

Returns a redirect to the resource that is additionally known by the Record Number as

.b12998539

.

Note: Record Number is required to be URL encoded.

Mappings

Identifier Mappings are provided to accelerate access to Local Link resources by 3rd party applications.
These mappings include key, value mappings that map identifiers to Local Link resources. Identifier Mappings follow the simple pattern of

http://riverrapids.library.link/id/scheme/all

The following are the set Identifier Mappings currently available.

Note: Identifier Mappings return the full list of typed identifiers that map to library resources and are intended for 3rd party developers. Users accessing these service through a browser may have difficulty loading the amount of data available.

/id/isbn/all

Example

http://riverrapids.library.link/id/isbn/all

Result

Returns the complete list of ISBN identifier to Library.Link local identifier mappings.

/id/lccn/all

Example

http://riverrapids.library.link/id/lccn/all

Result

Returns the complete list of LCCN identifier to Library.Link local identifier mappings.

/id/recordNumber/all

Example

http://riverrapids.library.link/id/recordNumber/all

Result

Returns the complete list of Record identifier to Library.Link local identifier mappings.

/id/systemNumber/all

Example

http://riverrapids.library.link/id/systemNumber/all

Result

Returns the complete list of System identifier to Library.Link local identifier mappings.

/id/publisherNumber/all

Example

http://riverrapids.library.link/id/publisherNumber/all

Result

Returns the complete list of Publisher identifiers to Library.Link local identifier mappings.